caroline

Another welcome! And how desperately needed such a guide is. Can we ask if this is in English or Spanish? And who the audience is? Tourists? Locals? And please keep us posted too. Great cheap places to eat in Mexico City are always worth knowing, Rachel

Theabroma, Carrot Top, thanks for the encouragement. Hi Nick, Good to have another Mexico-based person. Or are you just visiting? On goat cheese. I like goat cheese. And I know goats are easy to keep and that goat cheese is relatively easy to make. But I sometimes find it slightly depressing that people here who are going into cheesemaking seem to head disproportionately for goat cheese. There is so much to do on Mexican cheese. And it would be wonderful to have some European-style soft and hard cheeses. But moral for me, don't make throwaway remarks. On Reforma. I'll try to post in the near future on Mexican food publications. But for now, Reforma (liberal) is one of the big three newspapers in DF, the others being La Jornada (left, which has an excellent food column by Cristina Barros) and Excelsior (right). So far as I can ascertain, the latter two don't have food supplements. You can go to Reforma's website reforma.com and read the headlines, get the menu of the week, lists of restaurants (not reviews), etc. But if you want to read the stories you have to subscribe. This is MN $360 for three months (roughly $30). That gives you access to ten years back issues too. You can probably get Reforma on news stands in the center of Guadalajara though if it's like here they won't arrive until midday and then not reliably. (Esperanza?)I've tried getting it delivered but can't. You may also be able to read headlines and editorials in a local paper. Our León based paper, AM, includes them. It does not include the food supplement. Getting hold of periodicals and books in Mexico, as you may have observed, is a bit like hunting and gathering. You grab them as and when you can. Rachel edited for clarity

or has Rachel already accomplished that? Hello PakePorkChop, Rachel most certainly hasn't accomplished that. Indeed she studiously avoided it. so she's love to hear Sun-Ki's take as well, Rachel

Ok; so we’ll look at cheeses. As anyone who has traveled in the country knows, cheeses are found everywhere. More often than not they are soft, fresh, and used in various dishes of the “corn kitchen.” No doubt about it, after cattle and goats were introduced following the Conquest, not only the criollos but also the indigenous took up cheese with a passion. But because most of these cheeses are soft and fresh, they have been distributed locally until recently. If you have ever tried to get an idea of where and what the cheeses are, you’ll know it has been just about impossible. They just weren’t recorded. Now, hurrah, we have something informative: a terrific full page color map of Mexico with the thirty most important cheeses located, photographed, described, and with the commonest uses identified. This is thanks to Abraham Villegas de Gante, an expert in agricultural engineering at the National Agricultural University in Chapingo to the north of Mexico City and Carlos Pereza, a distinguished artisanal cheese maker in Querétaro who has been promising a book on Mexican cheeses for some time. And just to give credit where credit is due, the article was put together by Angel Rivas who talked to various other historians and agricultural researchers. It was published on September 10th in Buena Mesa, the food page of Reforma. I wish I could just scan the page. But here’s the list of cheeses. I haven’t put in the details because it would take hours. Chihuahua menonita, Chihuahua no menonita, asadero, de tetilla, adobera, jococque, panela, cotilla, chongos, sierra, de epazote, tipo manchego mexicano, de tenate, morral, guaje, trenzado, de rueda, ranchero de Veracruz, de hoja, Chapingo, de cincho, molido de aro, molido y cremosa, oaxaca, de aro, bola de ocozingo, crema tropical, de sal, de poro, sopero. Some random comments: This doesn’t quite map on to the standard grocery store categories (have to think about this). I think of jococque as yoghurt (whole mystery here about which came first, jococque or the Lebanese with yoghurt). Chongos are always served in syrup as they say. A sort of dessert cheese. The researchers are trying to get denominación de origin for some of them. Cotilla, a mature grating cheese from Jalisco and Morelia, is more or less ready to go. They make passing reference to the Mennonite origins of northern harder cheeses and to the Italian origins (aka mozzarella) of Oaxacan cheeses, something that can drive Oaxacans bats. They give dire warnings about imitations which (I suspect) are most of the cheeses in the grocery stores. These include cheeses with vegetable fats, milk powder, casein). They don’t include foreign cheeses made in Mexico commercially such as Gouda. Nor I note do they include two other very important and growing cheese-making enterprise. (1) goat cheeses (will the world sink under the weight of goat cheeses?); and (2) wonderful cheeses such as the range of what I used to call Italian cheeses but now have learnt to call Italian-style cheeses by the cheese-make Remo who sells to the Italian Embassy. But what great news that Mexican cheese is finally being studied. Now I have to track down and try all these cheeses! What a great chance to explore the country! Cheers, Rachel

Hey, thanks all for responding so positively to a dry disquistition on the Mexican culinary establishment. I want to respond properly to all of your points, partly selfishly because this is such a fine opportunity to sort out my own thoughts on Mexican food with such a knowledgeable group. I'm furiously jotting down notes on who owns, cooks in and eats in restaurants, fine home cooking, servants, and how culinary knowhow moves between classes and regions in Mexico. More shortly, Rachel

Esperanza, I've been mulling over the menu you described. Am I right in thinking that Patricia Quintana sustains the Mexican theme until dessert arrives and then you basically have desserts that might appear in an upmarket menu anywhere with a few Mexican ingredients named? Desserts are always a problem for any restaurant doing fine non-western food and I just wondered if this was another case. Rachel

Theabroma, thanks for finally suggesting a plausible answer to something that has puzzled me for ages, that is why smoke certain chiles? It also suggests that smoking chiles is an old technique, something I've not been able to get any information on. And like Shelora, I think that chile leather has great possibilities. The next culinary trend? il Is it your sense that the canned chipotle in adobo has really taken off in the last few years? And Shelora, if you come across some great recipes please pass them on. I've got a pile in my pantry and having been trying to rouse the energy to do something with them, Rachel

Sounds quite wonderful Esperanza. You are a much, much better food reporter than my husband. Whoops, I'm not damming with faint praise. what I mean is the meal sounds great, but your way of conveying it is great too. I'm hungry! Rachel

Growing up in a traditional middle class English family, breakfast was two-course. It might be bacon and fried egg or scrambled egg, or bacon and kidneys, or bacon and sausage, or bacon and tomatoes, or bacon/sausage and fried potatoes, or kippers, or poached smoked haddock, or porridge with sugar and cream. Never all. Followed by toast, butter and home-made marmalade. The big buffet spreads were for the upper class, probably when there were lots of guests. The beans on toast were post WWII and (dare I say it?) for breakfast probably one step down the social scale. Even though Heathrow and Gatwick both serve them. Yuk, Rachel

Many of us on this list are used to seeing Mexican food through the eyes of those who interpret it for the United Status: Diana Kennedy, Rick Bayliss, Zarela Martínez, and so on. Wonderful interpreters, all of them. But their focus is cooking, not the culinary scene. And since the culinary scene is fascinating, very different from the US, and essential to understanding Mexican food, I thought a series of observations might be of interest. And where better to start than with the Mexico City Culinary Establishment? I don’t think there’s any US equivalent. Mexico City is a world unto itself in highly centralized Mexico. For those who live there, it’s the only place in the country that matters (think Paris for a comparison). Within Mexico City, a core circle of thirty or forty people make up the Culinary Establishment. Among them, in no particular order, are Cristina Barros, José Iturriaga, Patricia Quintana, Jorge De’Angeli and his wife Alicia Gironelli, Lula Bertán, Sonia Corcuera, Luis Vargas, Maria Dolores Torres Yzabal, Lila Lomelí, Victor Nava, Janet Long, Silvia Kurczyn, Graciela Flores, Margarita Carrillo, etc. So who are these people? These are people whose first second language is as likely to be fluent French as English, who have a parent or grandparent from Catalonia, Poland, England, France or Italy, who grew up eating a Mexican version of French or Spanish food. ("What you must understand, Rachel, is that we never ate Mexican food at home," said one, a staement that actually needs some teasing out). They are part and parcel of the rest of the Mexican establishment. To get some sense of this, imagine if in the US, the director of the National Endowment for the Arts, a few Harvard faculty, a fifth-generation Rockefeller, the wife of Alan Greenspan, and assorted poets and novelists were all involved in researching, cooking, and promoting American food. I know the mind boggles, but that’s the way it is in Mexico City. Given their international connections, it is not surprising that this is the group that represents Mexican food internationally. They are the people who sit on Slow Food Committees, try to find chefs for “internal” Mexican restaurants in the US, shepherd around and/or cook for a lot of the visiting tours from the US, in many cases provide contacts for US cookbook writers, go to IACP conventions, sit on Premios de Gourmand committees, and are promoting Mexican food as a UNESCO Patrimonio de la Humanidad. Ironically, they have probably had much less impact on the Mexican provinces, except perhaps Puebla which is reachable in a day trip from MC. Given that essentially no newspaper food pages reach the provinces, that there are no nationally distributed Mexican culinary magazines with a half life of more than a year or so, no major chains of bookstores, much of their impact is at present restricted to Mexico City. But what an impact! This group has done an amazing job promoting Mexican cuisine. Among their accomplishments: • a series of stunning (and often stunningly expensive) Mexican cookbooks, many or most of them unavailable in English • opening of high end Mexican restaurants (traditionally high end Mexican food was found in clubs, corporate dining rooms, or homes) • the investigation and publication of scholarly studies of middle class and “popular” Mexican food across Mexico • scholarly culinary histories and anthropologies at a world class level • excellent glossy illustrated culinary histories, studies of individual foodstuffs, foreign influences on Mexican cooking written in understandable ways at affordable prices for a more general audience • incorporation of a serious culinary component in the Mexico City Festival and lots of other public events • reprints of classic Mexican cookbooks and manuscript cookbooks at affordable prices • cooperation between high end restaurant and university academics to offer hands on training in Mexico’s culinary heritage • support and training for mayoras (traditional female cooks in Mexican restaurants) There’s a whole lot more that could be said but this is already a ridiculously long posting, Rachel

No esta mal. Es tamal. (it's not bad. It's tamal) My goodness I felt proud when I figured out that pun, Rachel

Sound like great ideas. And doable at home too. What's your take on the flavor. You say anisey but others on this thread tend to root beer! Rachel

Rancho Gordo, Your amaranth sounds great. and thanks Theabroma for all those hints. I've never seen amarnth being popped so it was an eyeopener. As Theabroma will tell you, aguamiel is not honey but the liquid collected from maguey. (Miel is used in spanish for all sorts of syrup, miel de abeja being just one). The maguey sap can be boiled down to a syrup or allowed to ferment (pulque). It has a very distinct flavor, not to everyone's taste. And goodness knows where you would find it in California. It's not readily available in most parts of Mexico unless you know someone in a village. Perhaps something to put on the list for your next visit to Mexico! Your six year old would probably be very happy with a piloncillo syrup, Rachel

Esperanza, that does sound like a horrible shock. What a miracle that no one was hurt. Have a wonderful time in DF. The event is Monday at 6:30. I'm not sure what the procedure is for getting in. I just got an email. I suspect they want lots of warm bodies. I'll try to find out. My husband went to Izote and said the barbacoa was the best he had ever tasted. The American/Spanish/Italian group he took loved it. And Tezka is wonderful and not outrageously expensive. if I remember the tasting menu was $40. It's a bit difficult to go because they only do evening meals a few days a week and it's not always easy to get there for comida since it's way in the south. But reservations are not difficult. Rachel

No I won't Richard. Pity in some ways. As most of us on this list well know the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City is one of the world's really great museums. I've had the luck to be invited to some of these after-hours events and it is somewhere between inspiring and creepy to be chatting over wine with the dark galleries and all their contents dimly visible at your back. But apart from the cost in time and money of going to Mexico City, I have to admit to some reservations about the event. But never fear. I am sure I can get a report from friends and the newspapers, Rachel

On Monday 4th October in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City there will be a function to move ahead the recognition of Mexico's food as an oral and non material patrimony of humanity (forgive the unintentional puns in translation) of UNESCO. The title is ¨People of Maize: Mexican Ancestral Cuisine. Rites, Ceremonies and Practices of Mexican Cuisine." The current president of Conaculta (the Advisory Board on Culture) will start the proceedings, long-term commentator Cristina Barros and Gloria López Morales will present the case, and various others unknown to me will comment. I think all the food establishment of Mexico will be there, Best, Rachel

And now I discover that Ricardo Muñoz has a recipe for tiny tortitas de huazontle shaped liked albondigaditas and floated in a soup that is essentially the sauce you would usually use. That I have to try, Rachel

Guess what? It tastes like oil with chile peppers and cardamom. No, seriously, Rachel

Well, there I was pushing my cart around the Mega Commercial in León and what should I spot but a bottle with Ferran Adria's photo on the label hanging round its neck. Or a series of bottles of flavored olive oil produced by the firm Borges. So seven bucks later, I am the proud owner of 200ml of chile and cardamom flavored oil. The web page suggests I try it over spinach. All in the interests of culinary research! I'll be curious to see how they sell, Rachel

Rancho Gordo, Your stall sounds fabulous. And the huazontle does always look a little wilty in the markets now you mention it. And Shelora, I was a bit surprised you had to special order it because when it's in season (now) it's everywhere in central Mexico including all the supermarket chains such as Carrefour, Wal-Mart, Soriana, Commercial and Gigante. And very cheap. I don't remember exactly but I think I paid about a dollar for a bunch big enough to feed ten normal people or me three times. My technique sounds just like the ones you describe Shelora and Theabroma though the idea of wrapping up the bundles of seed heads with a thread would sove my problem of keeping the thing together. I think if I grated the cheese instead of using a lump it would help glue the thing together too. And I agree it absolutely must be eaten with the fingers so you can nibble and suck all those tasty green seed heads off the stems. As an alternative, my neighbor tell me that she boils it, strips off the tender parts, squeezes them into a tortita without cheese and then uses the usual batter and tops with the usual sauce that Theabroma described. And Fifi, this is a must-try vegetable. The taste is quite exquisite. If you're having trouble imagining it, think of a chile relleno but instead of the chile you have these little bundles of tender seedheads on their handles of chewy stems. Rachel

Great story. And the way it goes, there'd be room for the diapers! Rachel

Oh Shelora, Your remark about huazontle relleno hit home because I made it for myself last night (and had it again for breakfast this morning). It is one of the most heavenly vegetable dishes in the world I think. The texture of the green seeds, the way they make your mouth water, the cheese, the batter. yum. And I was wondering if this could ever become a popular green in the States. It's time-consuming and difficult to prepare and messy to eat (if that bothers you). Do you have any hints on cooking it? I could learn a thing or two about making the little bundles stick together, Rachel

Have to try the yellow mole. Sounds great. And Fifi the plant is a damn trifid if you remember that classic science fiction story. I had mine trapped in a pot for some time where it behaved itself. Then I made the mistake of putting it in the garden. After sulking a while, it took off and I rather liked the tropical look it gave to my basically dry garden. Now it's on a rampage. I hacked it back today and have a huge number of leaves. We not in an hoja santa part of Mexico. The best restaurant in town chops it finely and sprinkles it over a mixed salad. That takes care of of about half one of the leaves. My guide in everything Mexican, Ricardo Muñoz, helpfully points out that it's used with iguana, Rachel

Para nada, Rachel

Hi Fifi, Lalitha, Carrot Top, I have to try liquorice tea. sounds wonderful. And so does sugar coated anise or fennel. And I'm sure you're right, Fifi, that the Pimpinella is not native but was one of the many Mediterranean herbs that came with the Spaniards. I'm going to try to get a specimen of the wild plant. That could be local. The number of wild plants used in Mexican cooking/medicine is truly staggering. Oh for a good botanical guide. I think I shall have to lay out the money for one of the expensive guides to Mexican ethnobotany, Rachel